World
David Cameron winds his office up
In 2021 we bid many things farewell: Philip Green’s retail empire, England’s Euro chances and Donald Trump’s presidency. And now, joining them…
Will Trump’s pro-vaccine stance prove his undoing?
Donald Trump famously boasted that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and still not…
Don’t blame deforestation for the pandemic
With a laboratory leak in Wuhan looking more and more likely as the source of the Covid pandemic, the Chinese…
Labour MP demands 'free movement for all'
New year, old Labour. As 2021 draws to a close and Keir Starmer’s managers seek to establish Labour as A…
No, babies shouldn't be allowed in the Commons
Babies have no place in the chamber.I’ve asked to leave debates to feed my child a few times and have never been…
Around the World In Eighty Days is the worst TV this Christmas
‘In many ways, Phileas Fogg represents everything that’s alarming and peculiar about that old sense of British Empire. Potentially, it’s…
Banana republic Britain and the curse of reverse exceptionalism
A day did not go by on social media in 2021 without some high-profile performative outrage about Boris Johnson and…
France has the most to lose from Britain's turn away from Europe
It was Napoleon who declared that ‘a state has the politics of its geography’. We do well to remember that…
Will Trump's pro-vaccine stance prove his undoing?
Donald Trump famously boasted that he could ‘stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody’ and still not lose voters. That…
Abortion has poisoned American politics. Good
In the months before and after the 2020 presidential election, I was ready to take the blackpill. I had become…
Remember panic-buying? Here's what will happen next time
It’s post-Christmas, and there are already murmurs about supermarkets with empty shelves. Just as with the petrol shortage in September and…
Boris's lockdown gamble could spell big trouble for Labour
Has Boris Johnson just been thrown a lifeline by a devolution settlement that has caused nothing but trouble for UK…
Stonewall's annus horribilis
The year 2021 has been an annus horribilis for Stonewall. For much of the last decade, the charity could do no…
Labour in limbo over Covid curbs
Wes Streeting has enjoyed something of a dream start since his promotion to shadow health secretary a month ago. Confident…
The Father I knew: A tribute to Desmond Tutu
The tributes being paid to Desmond Tutu this week often begin with words like ‘activist’, ‘campaigner’, ‘protester’, ‘fighter’ or ‘opponent’.…
Diane Abbott’s Zero Covid crusade
With Christmas over, the turkey consumed and Maughamtide been and gone, the eyes of an anxious nation have turned once…
The modern economy is built on addiction
Two stories, side-by-side in theSunday paper I was looking at online. The first — ‘Strip Dame Dopesick ofher title’ —…
Scotland's 2022 constitutional courtroom drama will be pure theatre
This is the time of year when economists and political scientists make their predictions for the upcoming 12 months. Will…
Afghanistan's troubles can't only be blamed on the Taliban
In 2001, I spent part of a hard winter in a remote village near Bamiyan in the Afghan central highlands.…
Braverman's brush with the law
Ah student politics: is there anything quite like it? The strange creatures it attracts, the passions it unleashes, the adolescent…
What Patrick Vallance doesn't say about Sage
Does Sage have a pro-lockdown bias? Sir Patrick Valance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, wrote an article in the Times…
No, Putin isn't trying to bring the Soviet Union back
On Christmas Day 1991, in his last act as president, Mikhail Gorbachev signed away the existence of the Union of…
The churches must stay open
Hooray for Cardinal Vincent Nichols, who used the one day of the year when his pronouncements are amplified by the…
What Putin's Russia fears most of all
When Vladimir Putin called the collapse of the Soviet Union ‘a major geopolitical disaster of the century’ he wasn’t channelling…
What’s it like spending Christmas behind bars?
It’s customary these days for people to complain that Covid restrictions mean everyday life ‘is like living in a prison.’…
